Welcome to HWDSB’s 2016 Director’s Annual Report
In 2015-16, HWDSB worked to make every school a great school. We also Reimagined our vision and focus. We asked the community how we were doing and used this challenging feedback to launch a new vision in fall 2016. Our five new priorities are Positive Culture and Well-being, Student Learning and Achievement, Effective Communication, School Renewal and Partnerships. Below, we use this new structure to review our work in 2015-16.
Positive Culture and Well-being
We want all HWDSB students and staff feel safe, supported and accepted. We also want HWDSB students and staff to be engaged in the school and workplace as a learning organization committed to respectful and inclusive working and learning environments.
Some ways we pursued this in 2015-16 include:
Well-being: Student well-being was made part of the school improvement process, alongside strategies to encourage credit accumulation and increase graduation and return to school for early leavers. We also encouraged schools to participate in school and system events, and help us gather and respond to student voice and engagement.
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Inclusion: Supporting our First Nations, Métis and Inuit student community by identifying and leveraging up the targeted approaches successful at Strengthening Hamilton’s Aboriginal Education (SHAE) to other schools, and integrating First Nations, Métis and Inuit literacy material and approaches into selected After School Schools Programs. We have also provided learning opportunities for staff all many levels of HWDSB and collaborated with our First Nations, Métis and Inuit community on engagement sessions for parents.
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Student Learning and Achievement
We want all students reading by the end of Grade 1, improvement in mathematics and all students graduating.
Some ways we pursued this in 2015-16 include:
Reading: Like many Ontario school boards, EQAO results at HWDSB indicated the need for a reset. It is critical that students are reading by the end of Grade 1. To get to this goal we have set an aggressive target to see at least 75% of Grade 1 students earn a B or above on their June 2017 report card.
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Math: Math is a challenge across Ontario as we can see with the new provincial math strategy’s call for protected learning time, math leads in elementary schools, coaching of principals and vice-principals, support for learning at home and more examples, like the Homework Help clubs we have at HWDSB.
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Graduation: Although challenges continue, we are encouraged that the gap to the province narrows as students approach graduation – the end game for us. We are also seeing our graduation rate rising.
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Effective Communication
At HWDSB, we seek to improve internal communication with staff and students, as well as improve public confidence with our external stakeholders.
Some ways we pursued this in 2015-16 include:
Internal and external engagement: We worked hard to build awareness of the Reimagine campaign’s three-part process: Explore, Imagine, Launch. This provided robust and challenging public and staff feedback to improve our vision and focus.
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Websites: To achieve high levels of parent engagement, we worked to increase the number of families signed up for school website updates by email.
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Public confidence: Corporate Communications created awareness campaigns for transition events including Pathways Information Night, Grade 8 Nights and Option Sheet Nights. Pathways Night exit cards provided baseline data on the event’s effectiveness and understanding of our programming.
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School Renewal
We want to improve the conditions of our schools, so that all students and staff have great environments in which to learn and work.
Some ways we pursued this in 2015-16 include:
Partnerships
We want to strengthen our collaboration with new and existing community partners to enhance opportunities for students.
Some ways we pursued this in 2015-16 include:
Community Engagement: The HWDSB Community Engagement Report Card was developed and piloted with a selection of community partners. We will use it to ask community partners how they view HWDSB, what they feel HWDSB does well and how they feel HWDSB might improve the way it engages the community. Implementation in 2016-17 will gather baseline data for improving engagement when building relationships or community partnerships.
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Parent Engagement: We used system-level, targeted parent engagement to empower parents to support their child’s learning and achievement. Staff will explore new ways to meet parent needs in 2016-17.
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ABACUS: HWDSB began a long-term, system-level partnership with the Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF) in support of their ABACUS initiative, which aims to improve high school graduation rates and access to post-secondary, including the trades, by focusing efforts on Grades 6, 7, 8 and entry to high school. ABACUS employs an intervention program with four pillars: academics, mentoring, goal-setting and incentives, while also recognizing the importance of parental engagement to post-secondary access.
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